General Chat

similar difference .......

in BC, a second holiday home is usually called a "cabin", even if it is a waterfront property worth $1 million. People say "we're going to the cabin for the weekend".

In some other provinces, for example Ontario and Nova Scotia, the same thing is always called a cottage, even if it is a mere 1 room hut.

People get highly insulted if you ask "are you going to your cabin for the weekend", as a "cabin" refers to the fishing huts built on lake ice for ice fishing in the winter :-D

Been there, done that :-D :-D :-D

I keep getting told off by my OH for referring to our property as an apartment.
Apparently, here an apartment has only one bedroom. More than one is a piso.
Not being Spanish, they´re all flats to me.

We rented an apartment or flat before the house purchase went through. The address was ** ********* Apartments so we called it an apartment :-D

It's the same with those holiday log cabins.....suddenly they are now 'Lodges'.

IGP, schemes are what you would call an estate. Tenements are buildings divided into flats, and they are all numbered Flat 1A, Flat 1B etc. or Flat 1/1, 1/2 etc.

I live in the top half of a converted victorian villa and it is usually referred to as a conversion, (by Estate Agents) and a flat by everyone else.

With the exception of holiday accommodation I have not heard the word apartment used to describe a flat ..........yet! :-)

We also have semi-detached, where the properties are joined along a whole wall, and attached, where they are joined along just a little bit of wall. I had never heard this expression before I moved to Scotland.

I worked in Glasgow for a while some years ago and flats were called either tenements or schemes.

If you were lucky to live in a detached house out in Bearsden orMilngavie then it was a villa.

I was seeing a girl many years ago who lived in a masonette. It was like a house; but built on top of a shop. So there was shops on the ground floor, with a row of massionettes above. From the outside they looked like flats; but had two floors.

Sheilaw .................

that would be classed as either a studio or a bachelor apartment here.

The difference is that a bachelor apartment may have an alcove for the bed or even a small bedroom ........... but that then runs very close to a 1 bedroom apartment.

But the key is that they are self-contained, with the kitchen area very clearly separated from the living dining area, sometimes by a counter, and with full cooker with oven and cook top, often a microwave and sink. There is always a full bathroom with a shower or shower / tub combo.

I know someone (Tim) who owns property, inherited from his dad.
Initially, the bedsits were as I described, but Tim 'up - marketed' the ones he inherited, and gave each 'bedsit' it's own en-suite, and truly separate kitchen ie curtain replaced with door.
These were then classed as 'studio flats' to estate agents (but not between Tim & me - I still insisted they were just about liveable bedsits)

But they were definitely an improvement.

Studios are common in some places, often in converted buildings (mine was an old hotel right by the sea). It was totally self-contained, with own front door, but living area was one room with kitchen 'area'. I did have my own bathroom! So I guess studios are different to bedsits :-D

Could that be the modern difference? Bedsits converted from a larger property and Studio Apartments, purpose built?

maggie .........

that's what I thought was a bedsit .......... and why I said the closest over here would be a room in a rooming house.

Bedsits, when I lived in one consisted of a room with a bed, and a cooker.
'Upmarket' bedsits had a 'kitchen area' , the size of a wardrobe, behind a curtain.
Toilet and bathing areas were shared between all tenants.

I thought bedsits were rented?

Bedsits had up-scaled to studios by the time I bought one in 1980s.

Allan ..........

in 1975/76, we rented a unit in a small apartment block of about 16 units that had been built in a residential area ......

..... the developer built the 2 storey block lengthwise down the garden. The building was to one side, with a gravel driveway and parking area down the other.

Turned out the neighbours were very much anti- the development, and he could not rent any of the "units".

So he rented to whole building to LaTrobe University, and they in turn rented to older married students, staff, faculty and "visiting faculty". It was an interesting mix of people ........... but the locals completely ignored us!

Rollo ...........

it really is not very surprising that "A lot of things in Canada are much more USA than UK. Apartments are surprisingly small given the size of the place."

We are, for better or worse, much closer to the US in all ways than to the UK and England.

As for apartments being small ..... not too sure how many apartments you have seen, but I think a 3,000 sq ft apartment is exactly small, nor is a 6,000 sq ft one.

Also please consider how much of Canada is actually unliveable for most people when saying how big it is. Most people will not live further north than the 100 km band along the US border ............ and I'm sure you agree with them if you had ever ventured north.

It's left to the First Nations people ......... Brits are too weak and feeble to handle the harshness.

and yes, I prefer living in the south of Canada. I don't like -40C in winter or +20C in the summer with loads of mossies and black flies :-D

Sharron :-D

Well, I live in a end of terrace which is what it is known as.
Down the road, they turned an old warehouse into 'Duplex' flats,
If 'Duplex' equates to the ground floor having outside metal blinds, I understand that.
Otherwise, they're just flats.

I think it might have been about the same time as the train station opened near that place where airplanes land.

Duplexes in Oz are semi-detached houses.

We also have units which are several houses, but built on a single title of land. They are then strata-titled; each 'unit' is the responsibility of the individual owner, but all the common areas e.g. roads, open spaces are the responsibility of a Strata Company which usually consists of the owners, but is governed by Legislation